


To Shrug

by nni



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 11:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5664334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nni/pseuds/nni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s almost working; he’s almost starting to believe that maybe the way he feels is reasonable. It still seems a little fucked up, trying to defend himself,  but it’s all he can do to push himself forward, keep stumbling over debris and out of this place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Shrug

**Author's Note:**

>   
> **PLEASE NOTE:** This work does contain some spoilers for TFTB!  
>  Also, the 'T' rating is mostly just for use of some language. I'm not used to writing not-porn so.  
> If you have any suggestions on how to rate/tag this, they're more than welcome o/

It’s a weird sort of realisation Rhys has, standing in the wreckage of Helios once he comes to, cybernetic eye curled gently in his remaining palm. He wouldn’t say he is- was- close to Jack, not sure that anybody could really claim to be. But having had him lodged in his circuits, a foreign consciousness butting up against his own, some of the things he’d said.. he can’t help but feel like maybe he saw the invincible Handsome Jack just a little bit vulnerable. The thought makes him swell with a wrong sort of pride, like he shouldn’t feel so high on seeing his fallen idol as close to broken as he would probably ever admit to being.

 

But that’s not what’s got that guilty warmth burning low under the gravity of loss anyway, not about bearing witness as the mighty fall. Not really. It’s that, by some twisted whim of fate, Jack had actually _confided_ in him. A glimpse of a side to him that nobody had ever thought existed.  And he can’t help but feel that old reverence tugging at his chest, a light sense of proud awe, like the eye in this storm of destruction and shame. A life raft keeping him afloat until the reality of everything that's happened crashes into him.

 

This isn’t healthy, he knows that. None of it. It’s kind of sick, actually, but maybe that's just human nature. Here he stands, unbalanced in more ways than one and literally in _pieces_ , dizzy off this strange cocktail of blood loss and mixed emotion. But, in spite of everything, in spite of the disaster, the betrayal, the manipulation, the slow creep of  disappointed hatred blistering the edges of his perfect picture of his imperfect hero ( _his_ hero, decidedly not _a_ hero, and he shows a valiant effort to not explore what that implies about himself), he’s still trying to let himself have this one, small thing. He deserves that much at least.

 

The echo of a ghost reminds him that he deserves nothing.

 

Sure, he could try and justify it, this inability to completely let go of his pathetic scramble for Jack's approval. This warped reflex to excuse him that he just can't shake. Hell, if he was just a little more morally repulsive it would probably be easy. The obvious argument of cranial cohabitation aside, not many people have had to tell someone they're _dead_ before.. probably. That's gotta be some kind of bonding experience, right? And he'd felt sorry for him then, genuinely sorry, back before that little warning sign at the back of his mind proclaiming “JACK IS A DICK” flickered to life in blinding neon. Before the truth shattered through and the words shifted, accusing “MONSTER.”

 

At this point he's not really sure if that had been a warning about Jack or himself.

Not really sure it would make a difference.

 

It makes his stomach churn that he can almost buy into that, give himself a little leeway as if sympathy for the dead can absolve the blood on his hands, can somehow hide the stains. Only gets worse when he realises that even after Jack had shown just a hint of his true colours, after he almost _killed_ Rhys’ friends, had taken control of his unconscious body, he still let his guard down. He still let that pang of compassion worm its way through his chest, and he can _still_ almost rationalise it. Because that time, that second bout of uninvited commiseration, had come flooding in when Jack had told him about his daughter. His _daughter_ for Christ’s sake.

 

Not when he’d reluctantly revealed that she existed, no. He’d felt almost privileged then, knowing something so apparently private about Jack’s personal life, figured he must have kept that secret so close to his chest to keep her safe. No, the pity came later, when Jack was just a glitch on an oversized screen mourning her betrayal. Her death. That he’d had to learn of her sacrifice not once but _twice._ Anyone could see the tragedy in that, in losing a child, no matter how wretched the parent, right?

 

It’s almost working; he’s almost starting to believe that maybe the way he feels is reasonable. It still seems a little fucked up, trying to defend himself,  but it’s all he can do to push himself forward, keep stumbling over debris and out of this place. A more rational version of Rhys, a distant one not drunk on self-loathing and bone-deep exhaustion, knows it’s not the same. Basic human decency, sympathy, they’re not the same as agreeing with all that devastation, all the horrors left in Jack’s wake. But with his history, his recent spectacular fuck ups, the way he feels so _hollow_ inside and out, it’s just so hard to remember.

 

Especially when other things keep swimming to the surface, like Jack is still haunting him even now, tucked gently away in Rhys’ pocket. He’d meant to crush it, he really had, but that felt too.. _final_. Too real. If Jack had meant what he’d said, had been telling the truth about the great nothing that lies beyond, he couldn’t bring himself to end it all completely. Not so deliberately. It’s sort of hypocritical, he knows that, having just ended how many lives all for the sake of taking Jack down, but that’s already something he’ll have to live with. Have to try to live with. He doesn’t need another life on his hands.

 

That’s the difference between him and Jack, he tells himself, when a flash of blue, on its knees and pleading for mercy, races through his mind. In the face of it, in the face of a man begging for his life, fear so foreign even in his static eyes, Rhys can’t bring himself to pull the metaphorical trigger, drowns in the pure desperation of a man on the brink. Jack revels in it.

 

He has an almost disorienting jolt back to when this all started, to Henderson floating by the window as Vasquez had prattled on, some cosmic sense of humour meant to drive the point home that he sees mirrored here, as Jack’s souvenirs of.. what had he called it? corporate warfare fallout? litter the ground around his feet. As if he needed that extra push to remember just how much Jack thrives- thrived- on leveling everything in his path.

 

A certificate declaring ownership of whatever remains of Atlas stares up at him from a shattered frame on the floor, and he can’t help but laugh. Try to laugh. His lungs don’t have the energy for much more than a pitiful puff of air, right now, but it’s the thought that counts. He still appreciates the irony, with the weight of the world bowing his back, although comparing himself to the namesake of the corporation feels a bit presumptuous.

 

Still, he lets his eyes- well, eye, now- linger a little longer, the broken gears in his mind slowly starting to turn. Jack’s words had whispered promises of peace, of order, while his guns screamed of blood and genocide. But, with Handsome Jack gone (for now, for all intents and purposes), with the world at his feet, maybe he could start something new. Something better. Rebuild and transform. It’s fitting, maybe a little grandiose, but most of all it feels _right_ . Visions whirl through his muddled brain of what all Atlas could be-- what all _he_ could be. Of changing things for the better without wiping the slate of an entire planet clean.

He’s not going to say Jack was right, that destruction is the only path to victory, but maybe, with everything already crumbling to the ground, it’s the one he’s got right now. Maybe some good can still come from all of this. Maybe he can still find redemption.

 

Maybe, just maybe, he can even start to deserve it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> ending note: the title is taken from a quote from atlas shrugged because i'm lame and predictable.  
> the full quote is this:
> 
> “If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him?"
> 
> I…don't know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?"
> 
> To shrug.”
> 
> * * *
> 
> i haven't been able to write for a long time, so this work is kind of just a drabble to stick my toes back in the water.
> 
> i'm also a huge shameful/less rhack shipper so.. that... might pop up next time i get the time to write.


End file.
